The Pilgrim's Shell or Fergan the Quarryman Part 6

"The Bishop of Nantes in my power!" exclaimed Neroweg. "Azenor predicted it. Her magic charm begins to operate!" He rose precipitately from his throne, and, followed by his sons and several of his equerries, ran to meet the bishop, his enemy, who was being led a prisoner, together with the other travelers captured by the armed guards posted at the toll gate. Bezenecq the Rich and his daughter Isoline accompanied Simon, the Bishop of Nantes, and the monk Jeronimo, clad like a prelate. After his vain efforts to induce the travelers not to cross the seigniory of Plouernel, the bishop had, nevertheless, joined them, not venturing to enter alone with Jeronimo upon the territory of the seigneur of Castel-Redon, and hoping he would pa.s.s unperceived amidst a numerous troop. Unhappily for him, among the guards at the gate was a soldier named Robin the Nantesian, who had lived in the city of Nantes, and where he had opportunity to see the leading personages among the inhabitants. He quickly pointed out Bezenecq the Rich as a townsman from whom it would be easy to extract a big ransom. Noticing, thereupon, a monk, who seemed anxious to keep his cowl over his head, he pulled the frock off the monk and recognized the Bishop of Nantes, a personal enemy of the Count. The men of Neroweg then seized the two friars, pinioned them, as well as Bezenecq and his daughter, and accepted the toll from the other pa.s.sengers, whom they allowed to pursue their journey. The bourgeois of Nantes, bound upon his mule, with his daughter bathed in tears at the crupper, was carried to the castle, with the bishop and Jeronimo, their hands tied behind their backs, following on foot. When the captives arrived at the first court-yard of the castle, Bezenecq alighted from the saddle, and, freed from his bandages, he held up his daughter, ready to faint. The bishop, pale as death, leaned upon the arm of Jeronimo, whose resolute carriage betrayed no fears. Neroweg, accompanied by his sons, arrested his hurrying steps when he came close to the prisoners, and, addressing them, said, sardonically: "I greet you, Simon! I greet you, holy man, my father in Christ! I hardly looked for this joyful meeting!"

"I am at your mercy," answered the prelate; "the will of G.o.d be done. Do with me as you will."

"I shall avail myself of your leave," replied the seigneur of Plouernel.

"Oh, this is a happy day to me!"

"I ask only one favor," rejoined the bishop, "the favor of keeping near me this poor monk until the moment of my death, that he may help me to die like a Christian."

"I do not mean to send you quite so soon to Paradise. I have other designs upon you," and beckoning to Garin the Serf-eater to draw near, the seigneur of Plouernel whispered a few words in his ear. The bailiff nodded affirmatively, crossed the drawbridge and entered the donjon.

During their father's brief dialogue with the bishop, Guy and Gonthram had not ceased to pursue Isoline with their lascivious looks, and the frightened young girl had hidden her face on the breast of her father.

Robin the Nantesian, raising his voice, said to Neroweg, while placing his hand on the shoulder of the townsman: "This is one of the richest merchants of the city of Nantes. He is called Bezenecq the Rich. Forget not that he is worth his weight in gold."

The Count fastened his falcon eyes upon the captive, and, taking two steps toward him, said: "Your name is Bezenecq the Rich?"

"I am so called, n.o.ble seigneur," humbly answered the bourgeois. "If your men have arrested me in order to make me pay ransom, I only request not to be separated from my daughter. Hand me a parchment. I shall write to the depositary of my money to deliver a hundred gold sous to whomever of your men shall deliver my letter to him. You will have the sum upon the return of your messenger, and you will then return our liberty to myself and my daughter." Seeing that the Count shrugged his shoulders with a sardonic smile, the merchant added: "Ill.u.s.trious seigneur, instead of one hundred gold sous I will give you two hundred. But, I pray you, for mercy's sake, have me taken with my daughter to some apartment where the poor child may recover from her fright and the fatigues of the journey." Isoline, more and more alarmed at the ardent looks of the two whelps, trembled convulsively. Neroweg, silent as before, looked from time to time towards the donjon as if awaiting the return of the bailiff. Bezenecq resumed with an effort: "Seigneur, if two hundred pieces of gold do not yet suffice you, I shall go as far as three hundred. It means my ruin. But I resign myself to that, provided you set my daughter and myself free."

At that moment Garin the Serf-eater came out of the donjon, recrossed the draw bridge and spoke in an undertone to Neroweg, who, turning to the prisoners, said: "Come along, my guests! You will learn what I am to do with you. You are to have a chat with a certain dame of great powers of persuasion."

"Oh, you butcher! You mean to put me to the torture!" cried the bishop, horror stricken. "Jesus, my G.o.d, have pity upon me! Mercy! Mercy!"

"No weakness, Simon," whispered Jeronimo to him; "we must submit to the will of G.o.d. His ways are inscrutable."

"Let the bishop be taken to his lodging; the monk shall keep him company." The bishop emitted lamentable cries and essayed to resist the men who were dragging him into the donjon. "It is now your turn to step in, Bezenecq the Rich. Come, brother, resistance is useless."

"Have I not offered you three hundred gold sous for my ransom, Count of Plouernel?" asked the merchant. "If you do not find that sum enough I shall add another hundred gold pieces. I shall have given you my whole fortune!"

"Oh, worthy brother, in honor to the commerce of Nantes, I cannot admit that one of its wealthiest merchants is worth only four hundred gold sous!" Then, turning to his men: "Conduct my guest and his daughter to their quarters."

At the moment when the men of Neroweg were about to take hold of Bezenecq the Rich, Gonthram, brutally seizing the hand of Isoline, whom the merchant held fainting in his embrace, said: "I take this girl! She is my share of the ransom!"

"I also want her," cried out Guy, his eyes all aflame and advancing toward his brother with a menacing look. But Gonthram, little caring for the words and threats of his brother, made ready to seize the maid and carry her off. Guy then drew his sword. Gonthram in turn drew his, while the daughter of the townsman, distracted with terror, shrank within herself, inert, in a swoon.

"Guy! Gonthram! Put up your swords! This maid shall be none of yours,"

ordered Neroweg. "She shall not leave her father. In the presence of his daughter the bourgeois will prove more accommodating. Put back your swords! You, Garin," he went on, turning to the bailiff, "take this beauty in your arms, if she cannot walk, and carry her in with the old man."

Isoline, catching, despite her terror, the last words of Neroweg, rose to her feet with an effort and said to Garin in a suppliant voice: "For mercy's sake, my good seigneur, take me along with my father. I shall have strength to walk."

"Come," answered the bailiff, leading her to the draw bridge, while Guy and Gonthram, slowly returning their swords to their scabbards, exchanged such vindictive looks that the Count considered it necessary to remain near them in order to prevent a fresh outbreak.

Isoline, following Garin with unsteady step, crossed the draw bridge and entered the hall of the stone table, where still several va.s.sals of the seigneur awaited the close of the session that had been interrupted by the arrival of the prisoners. At one of the corners of this hall was the stone staircase that led down in a spiral from the platform of the donjon to its lowest cells. Near the steps was a trap door. Two men of sinister figure, clad in goat skins and carrying lanterns in their hands, stood near the gaping opening. Bezenecq was loudly calling for his daughter, and resisting with all his force the men who were dragging him in. Seeing, however, his daughter advancing towards him, he ceased to offer resistance, but broke down, weeping.

"Hurry up, my rich townsman!" said Garin the Serf-eater to him; "my seigneur wishes that you and your daughter remain together." Then, turning to the gaolers who carried the lanterns: "Go down first and light our way." The gaolers obeyed, and soon the merchant and Isoline disappeared with them in the depths of the subterranean donjon.

CHAPTER VII.

ABBOT AND MONK.

The donjon cells of the manor of Plouernel consisted of three vaulted stories, the only daylight into which penetrated through three narrow slits opening upon the gigantic ditch, out of which rose the donjon itself. Within, apart from a ma.s.sive door studded with iron, these cells consisted of stone only--they were roofed with stone, floored with stone, and the walls were of stone, ten feet thick. The cell, whither the Bishop of Nantes and the monk Jeronimo were taken, was at the very bottom of this subterraneous structure. A narrow loophole barely filtered through a pale ray of light into that semi-Stygian darkness.

The walls sweated a greenish moisture. In the center of the dungeon stood a stone bed, intended for torture or death. Chains and heavy iron rings fastened to the headpiece, to the sides and the feet of the long stone slab, that rose three feet above the floor, announced the purpose of that funereal couch, on which were now seated the monk and the Bishop of Nantes. The latter, a prey at first to agonizing despair, had by degrees recovered his composure. His face, now almost serene with a melancholic good nature, contrasted with the somber severity of his companion. "I am now resigned to death," the prelate was saying to Jeronimo, "yet I confess, I feel my heart fail me at the thought of leaving my wife and children without protection in days as dark as these are."

"There you have one of the consequences of the marriage of priests," the monk answered. "How justly did Gregory VII. reason when he forced the councils to interdict marriage to the clergy!"

After a moment's silence the Bishop of Nantes resumed with a melancholy smile: "Stoics, like the philosophers of antiquity, let's consider at this very moment of imminent torture and death the dogmas that bear upon our present situation."

"Let's commence with the great question of the spiritual and temporal dominion of the church."

"It is a grand subject. I listen."

"In our days, for every twenty abbots or bishops who are sovereign in their abbeys or bishoprics, are there not a hundred dukes, counts, marquises or seigneurs, sovereign masters in their dukedoms, counties or seigniories?"

"Sad to say, 'tis so!"

"Did not a large portion of the estates, that proceeded from the gifts of Charles Martel, return to the hands of the clergy at the time of the terror the people were seized with at the thought of the end of the world,--a terror ably fomented by the church down to the year 1000, and prolonged to 1033 by dint of able maneuvers?"

"That's true, too. The terrified seigneurs abandoned to the church a large part of their goods, thinking the day of judgment was at hand.

Since then, however, the same seigneurs, or their descendants, retook their rich donations from the clergy. The hatred that the Count Neroweg pursues me with has no other cause than the recovery of the lands that his grandfather bequeathed to my predecessor, at the time when those brutes expected to see the end of the world. The Count wages war against me to re-enter upon domains that once belonged to his family. The lance is rising against the holy water sprinkler."

"It has been so in all the other provinces. One of the causes of the wars of the seigneurs against the bishops and abbots has, for the last fifty years, been the recovery of the goods given to the Church on the occasion of the end of the world. In these impious strifes the seigneurs have almost always come out on top. The church was vanquished."

"It is a sad fact."

"In order to recover its omnipotence, the Church must again become richer than the seigneurs. She must, above all, rid herself forever of those brigands who dare reach out a sacrilegious hand towards the goods of the Church, and a.s.sault the priests of our Lord, the ministers of G.o.d."

"Alack, Jeronimo, it is a far way from the wish to the fact! The sword gets the best of the bishop's crook!"

"The distance is simply the journey from here to Jerusalem. That's all!"

The bishop regarded the monk with amazement, repeating without understanding the words: "The journey from here to Jerusalem!"

"I am a legate of Pope Urban II." proceeded Jeronimo. "As such, I am initiated in the policies of Rome. The French Pope Gerbert, and, after him, Gregory VII., conceived a great idea--to submit the peoples of Europe to the papal will. In order, however, to habituate them to a pa.s.sive obedience, an ostensible purpose had to be held out. Gerbert conceived the thought of the deliverance of the tomb of Christ, which had fallen into the hands of the Saracens, the masters of Syria and Jerusalem. This pregnant thought, conceived in the head of Gerbert and hatched out by Gregory VII., was the subject of long cogitations on the part of their successors. The Popes recommended to the faithful the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, to which they attached special indulgences and privileges. The people of Germany, of Spain, of Gaul, of England, gradually began to hear Jerusalem, the Holy City, talked about. The pilgrimages multiplied. Long though the voyage was, it did not seem impossible; moreover, it insured indulgences for all crimes, and, above all, it was a pleasure trip for the mendicants, the vagabonds, the runaway serfs from the domains of their masters. The pilgrims found good lodgings in the abbeys; they picked up some little money in the cities, and obtained free pa.s.sage on the Genoese or Venetian vessels as far as Constantinople, where they then departed for Jerusalem, traversing Syria and lodging over night from convent to convent. Arrived at the Holy City, they paid their devotions."

"And all that without any interference on the part of the Saracens. We must admit it among ourselves, Jeronimo, those miscreants showed themselves quite tolerant! The churches rose in peace beside the mosques; the Christians lived in tranquility, and the pilgrims were never incommoded."

"And it remained so," continued Jeronimo, "until the Saracens, exasperated by the anathemas hurled at the sectarians of Mahomet by the Catholic priests of Jerusalem, brought their hammer down upon the holy Temple of Solomon and demolished it--a demolition, however, that we avenged upon Jews by ma.s.sacring them in the several countries of Europe.

But after all, we cared little about the destruction of the Temple, or the safety of the Sepulchre. Our end was attained. The people had learned to know the road to Jerusalem. The sandals of the pilgrims had smoothed the road to the Holy Land to the Catholic peoples. The number of pilgrims increased from year to year. Often seigneurs, certain to obtain by means of that pious voyage the absolution of their crimes, joined the pilgrim vagabonds and beggars. That perpetual flux and reflux of peoples of all stations drew ever more the eyes of Europe to the Orient. The marvels narrated by the pilgrims upon the return from their long voyage, the relics that they brought back, the respect with which the Church surrounded them,--everything affected more and more the spirit of credulity and the vulgar imagination of the ma.s.ses. Gregory VII. foresaw these results. He considered it opportune to preach the Holy War. The Church raised her voice: 'Shame and sorrow upon the Catholic world! The Sepulchre of the Saviour of man is in the power of the Saracens! Kings and seigneurs, march at the head of your peoples to the deliverance of the Sepulchre of Christ and the extermination of the infidels.' To that premature appeal Europe remained indifferent. The hour of the Crusades had not yet sounded. Since then, however, the idea has made progress, and to-day we are certain to find the minds disposed to second the Pope in his projects. Accordingly, Urban II. has not hesitated to leave Rome and come to preach the Crusade in Gaul, the Catholic country _par excellence!_"

"What say you? The Pope himself is coming to preach the Crusade! Can that be true, oh, my G.o.d!"

"His Holiness is bound for Auvergne, and he sends his emissaries into the other provinces."

"And who are the men invested with the confidence of the Pope, and charged with leading such an undertaking to a successful end?"

"One of them, Peter the Hermit, vulgarly called 'Cuckoo Peter,' is a monk who has twice accomplished the pilgrimage to Jerusalem. He is an ardent man, gifted with a savage eloquence that exercises upon the mult.i.tudes a powerful effect. Another emissary is Walter the Pennyless, a knight of adventure, bold Gascon, charged to seduce with the cheerfulness of his words and the exaggeration of his descriptions all those who might remain indifferent to the savage eloquence of Peter the Hermit."